The Flicker Men (12 page)

“Crowds can be exhausting. I know you've had a long day, and your time is valuable, but I just had to meet the team responsible for the experiment that I've now become so interested in.”

“So you've read the paper?” Point Machine asked.

“Oh, yes. With great interest.”

“Do you often read the scientific periodicals?” Something about this struck me as unlikely—this man of wines and custom suits, reading back issues of the
Journal of Quantum Mechanics
in his spare time.

“Only occasionally, I will admit,” he said. “I am a dilettante—nothing more. An interested amateur. We do have eyes in the industry, though, and they alert us when something of particular interest presents itself.”

“And your work is certainly of particular interest,” Boaz added, speaking for the first time. His voice was gravel to his companion's smooth butter. There was something odd in his expression as he looked at me. Something I couldn't put my finger on.

Brighton continued, “I've always considered quantum mechanics to be an obstinate theory. Even in those edge cases where a normal, reasonable theory would have the good sense to break down, we find quantum mechanics stubbornly adheres to theoretical expression. It is a prediction machine.”

“Like no other,” I said.

At that moment, the waitress arrived with the bottle of wine. She smiled and took our orders. Brighton ordered duck; Boaz the blackened chicken. Point Machine and I were steak men, it turned out. I asked for salad on the side.

When the waitress left, the conversation shifted away from quantum mechanics, picking up again where Brighton had earlier put it down, as he guided us through wines and into art. Brighton spoke of his years in France and Germany, and his visits to Berlin. “There is a museum in Solingen, the Deutsches Klingenmuseum, that is dedicated to the ‘perspective of the blade.' I loved that wording, when I came across it in their brochures, as if a piece of steel can have its own particular view of the world. But who could doubt it must be true? The museum curators claim that you can tell a great deal about societies by the kinds of edged blades they create. Ornate butter knives, crude bayonets, bastard swords of blackened iron. There is a sword there, the
Richtschwert
, that was used as a beheading sword.” Brighton poured himself a glass of wine. “Now there is a blade with a perspective.”

The salads arrived, and Brighton reached across the table and filled my empty wineglass. “A toast,” he suggested.

Point Machine flashed me a concerned look as I reached for the glass and raised it with the others.

“To discovery,” Brighton said.

“To discovery.”

We clinked glasses. I lifted the wine close to my face. From the corner of my eye, I saw Point Machine watching me. I breathed deeply, taking in the fruity aroma. I felt my pulse quicken, the choice rising before me. I set the glass back on the table without drinking.

Brighton's eyes met mine over the top of his wineglass. He smiled and extended his toast, lifting his glass higher: “May we learn something new every day.” He drank.

The main course came steaming and popping, brought in on circular trays.

We were halfway through the meal when Brighton's banter shifted gears again, and he spoke between bites. “So, tell me about the experiment that has brought us together.” And here at last was our reason for meeting.

“The test was designed to detect quantum wavefunction collapse,” Point Machine began.

I let him do most of the talking while I chewed my steak. He went over the experiment in detail. The frogs and the puppy.

“Fascinating,” Brighton said when Point Machine mentioned the chimps. He pushed his empty plate away. “So it is much as I've read. You left nothing out?”

“The paper captured most of the details.”

“What I'm interested in,” Brighton said, turning now toward me, “are those details that the paper
didn't
capture.”

“Such as?”

“Why you ran the experiment in the first place.”

“Why does anyone run an experiment?” I said. “To see what will happen.”

“What did you hope to accomplish?”

I contemplated what remained of my salad, wondering what the green leafy stuff was, exactly, if not lettuce. A small crouton held a dime-sized blob of what looked like caviar. I considered the possibility that I'd been eating vitamins that my body wasn't used to. Certainly, a fifty-dollar salad contained nutrients not found in its cheaper brethren. For the price, it should.

“Accomplish?” I asked.

“Yes,” Boaz cut in. The silver-haired man leaned forward. His voice was tight. That same strange expression back again. “What were you trying to prove?”

And then it hit me. Anger. That expression was anger.

I placed my fork on the table. “Curiosity, nothing more.”

“About a decades-old experiment? There's more to it than that.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” I let the slightest chill seep into my voice.

Boaz opened his mouth to speak, but Brighton silenced his companion with a flick of the hand—a subtle gesture, but it was enough. Boaz's mouth snapped closed. Brighton seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment before he spoke. “Forgive my friend,” he said. “He pushes forward when he should stop. He can't help himself. It will be the ruin of him someday, no doubt.” Brighton leaned back in his chair and tossed his napkin on the table. “You are a learned man, Eric, but I wonder how familiar you are with the classics?”

“I've read my share.”

He paused for a moment and then continued. “Human understanding began with superstition. Then came the great thinkers—Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, da Vinci, Newton—each one doing his part to bring us out of the darkness, adding another layer to the integument. In the wake of this new wave of rationality, all the old superstitions fall away. Then there was Cantor and Poincar
é
, math and physics rising toward a new golden age. Until the cracks started showing.”

He leaned forward again, and his voice softened. “What G
ö
del did to math, Heisenberg did to physics. Incompleteness. Uncertainty. Even matter is indeterminate. Our new beliefs falling like towers. And then
you
,” he said. “You go bring an old belief back from the dead.”

“And what is that?”

“The soul.”

And then I suddenly understood the other half of this strange equation. The reason we were sitting there. This meeting was all about Robbins.

Brighton's smile faded. “Tell me, how do you like working at Hansen?”

“I like it fine,” I said.

“It's a long way from Indianapolis.”

That caught me. “What?” I was no longer sure what conversation we were having. The sand was shifting under my feet.

“A long way from your work at QSR. You don't consider the two-slit to be a distraction from your real work?”

“How do you know about my work at QSR?”

“As we said, we have eyes in the industry.”

I stared across the table at him. “A dilettante, you said.”

“In a matter of speaking.”

I glanced at Point Machine. A crease had formed between his eyebrows. He knew it, too: something wasn't right here.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” I said. I looked between the two men in turn. “I just now realized, after all this time talking, you've never mentioned what it is that you actually do.”

And there was the true artistry of a golden tongue. To be able to speak for an hour without revealing anything. To speak without leaving the impression that your words, by the hundreds, were full of empty air.

Brighton seemed amused by this direct approach. “We're a holding company,” he said. “Very small and specialized. Investments and research. Buy and sell. Also, there is a certain private endowment. We keep a low profile, while we keep our ears to the ground.”

“And how do you know Jeremy?”

“Who?”

“Jeremy. Our manager who arranged this dinner.”

“Ah, Mr. Bonner, you mean. We don't know him. At least not on any personal basis. This is a detriment, certainly, when one wishes to make the acquaintance of another firm's star employee, but it isn't an insurmountable obstacle. We can be very persuasive when need be, and it is amazing what a simple telephone conversation can facilitate in the right hands.”

“It is amazing, yes.”

Brighton sipped his wine. “A call was made to your employer—an introduction proffered on our behalf, and here we are. We're pleased for this opportunity to congratulate you. And to offer you encouragement.”

“Encouragement?” I couldn't keep the incredulity from my voice. They hardly seemed encouraging.

“To pursue
other
work.”

It could have been a threat if spoken by another man. Or if we weren't sitting in a crowded restaurant, with smiling waiters coming and going, and soft music playing in the background. Or it could have been a threat if I let it be one.

“I'm fine where I'm at.”

The smiles at the table faded. Brighton stared at me. “I can see that you're right. There is a place for every man, I firmly believe that. And you are in yours, that's easy enough to see.”

“Why did you call this meeting?”

“To congratulate you, as I said.” Brighton placed his napkin on his plate and signaled for the check. He looked back at me. “In 1919,” he said, “there was an Englishman appointed to a professorship in Peking, and his only opportunity to study the circulatory system came in the form of cadavers. The police at this time produced endless corpses, usually by hanging or beheading, which could be purchased. When the anatomist complained about the mangled quality of the necks he was seeing, the authorities responded by sending his next batch of cadavers to him still alive, hooded and pleading, and with instruction to please put them to death by manner that better suited his needs. Would you like to know what he did?”

I nodded. The slightest movement of my chin.

“The professor returned them. He lacked commitment, I think.” A smile peeled back from Brighton's teeth. “How committed are you?”

I considered the man sitting across from me. The five-thousand-dollar suit. The predatory smile. I wasn't sure what game he was playing, but I knew when I was out of my league. I slid my chair out and stood. “Thank you for the dinner, gentlemen.” Point Machine rose to his feet beside me.

“Thank
you
, Eric,” Brighton said. “It's been a pleasure.” He stood and extended his hand. When I shook it, he clasped his other hand over mine, holding it in place. “Before you go, one question. Robbins's experiment is in a few days; what do you expect will happen?”

“I couldn't venture a guess, either way,” I said.

“You say ‘either way' as if there are only two possibilities.”

“Aren't there? Either he finds wave collapse, or he doesn't.”

I felt his hands tighten on mine. “I think, Mr. Argus, that you've set in motion a series of events that you can't begin to understand.”

His expression shifted, and for a moment it looked as if he were deciding whether he should say more. His grip loosened. “But I guess we'll all see soon enough.”

“I don't have an ax to grind either way,” I said and I pulled my hand back. “I'm staying out of it.”

“I'm afraid you're already in it about as far as anyone can go.”

At that moment, the waitress arrived with the check. Brighton motioned, and the waitress set the leather folder on the table and left.

Brighton took his seat again. “We all have our axes to grind,” he said. “Anyone who claims otherwise is lying.” He opened the folder and signed the bill in a series of jagged slashes. “It's all in the perspective of your blade.”

 

17

The next day Point Machine and I skipped the afternoon lectures and left for the airport early. We spoke little on the taxi ride.

In the airport, once we were past security and nearing our gate, I saw a familiar face on one of the televisions that hung from the ceiling. Robbins. Face animated. Hands moving while he talked. He was like a politician in a debate, laying out his platform one plank at a time.

I slowed as I passed the TV, catching just a bit of his monologue. Something about deontological ethics and deprivation. The words lacked context, and without context lacked meaning, but there was no mistaking the ecstatic look on his face. A pause to smile, and then the smooth voice: “The testing tomorrow will prove it.”

Another talking head flashed on the screen, the obligatory counterpoint, face just as earnest, Harvard credentials captioned below. “He's overreaching,” the counterpoint said. “The science doesn't support that interpretation.”

A dozen people watched the TV from where they sat. Others played with their phones. Others slept. The airport was half-empty, midday, midweek. Midlife.

I thought of what Jeremy had asked.
But what do these results
mean?

They mean whatever you think they mean.

And that's why it was so dangerous.

I thought of all the scotch in the world.

I kept walking.

*   *   *

The night when I got back to my motel, I called Point Machine at his house. It was call or drink. And I didn't want to drink. Because I knew if I drank again, even a single sip, I'd never stop. Not ever.

He picked up on the fifth ring. Faraway voice.

“What's going to happen tomorrow?” I asked.

There was a long pause. Long enough that I wondered if he'd heard me. “Not sure,” he said. The voice on the other end was coarse and weary. It was a voice that hadn't been sleeping well. “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.”

“Meaning what?”